MADISON, Wis. – There was nothing significant about why the University of Wisconsin picked its March 2nd home game against Illinois to honor former UW player and assistant Howard Moore and his family.

The emotions Greg Gard and Tyler Wahl wore on their face talking about this weekend told a different story.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Gard said.

The last of four weekend home conference games for the Badgers, and the first since early February, Wisconsin will honor Moore’s family by having them, their friends, former teammates, supporters, and financial contributors on hand for a pregame program. The noon tip is already sold out.

Moore will not attend as he, according to a UW statement, "is slowly getting better every day and working hard to get back on his feet" following complications from the deadly May 2019 car accident.

A drunk driver hit Moore’s car head-on outside Ann Arbor. The driver, 23-year-old Samantha Winchester, had a blood-alcohol content level of 0.207%, more than 2.5 times Michigan’s legal limit of 0.08 percent when she struck Moore’s car.

The Moore’s nine-year-old daughter, Jaidyn, died at the scene while Moore’s wife, Jennifer, later died at the hospital. She was driving the vehicle at the time of the crash.

The Moores' then-12-year-old son, Jerell, was injured but survived; but Howard was left with serious burns from the fire caused by the impact. Moore planned to return to coaching after taking the year off but suffered a serious heart attack a month later. He survived thanks to extensive CPR treatment from emergency responders.

A committee of former Badgers Shawn Carlin, Chris Conger, Dan Fahey, Andy Kilbride, and Zak Showalter, as well as UW alumnus and philanthropist George Hamel and Madison attorney Tim Valentyn, started a fundraising campaign in April to help Moore cover the roughly $450,000 annual out-of-pocket medical costs.

“It’s surreal, not in a good way,” Gard said. “It takes you back to the unspeakable tragedy that changed people’s lives forever.”

Most of the team doesn’t recognize Moore's impact on UW basketball as a player and a coach. A three-year letterwinner from 1993-95, Moore was on the ’94 team that made the program’s first NCAA tournament berth in 47 years.

He was an assistant coach under Bo Ryan from 2005-10 and rejoined the Badgers during the 2015-16 season after Gard was elevated to interim head coach.

Gard made sure to take the time Thursday to walk the team through that legacy and show them a short video Wisconsin will show fans before the game (fans are asked to be in their seats by 11:45 a.m.). He made that decision to try and remove some of “the emotional shock” of it before hosting the second-place Illini.

As much as he did it for the players, he did it for himself.

“Walking through all that, from a memory standpoint and talking about it and telling that story, it takes me back,” Gard said. “It was emotional downstairs.”

Wahl is the only player remaining from that 2019-20 team that had a direct relationship with Moore. Wahl had been on campus less than two weeks when the team visited Moore at his home.

“I remember him giving us a good speech and saying you got to stick together,” Wahl said. “We’ve been in times like this. He was a great speaker, a great man of faith. I feel like that was something that was able to help us get through that season. It was something we can all lean into it together, and you saw the results from it.”

The results were a season plagued by off-the-court adversity that ended with eight straight victories, the last being a 60-56 victory at Indiana to clinch a share of the Big Ten title. It was UW’s final game of the season, as the postseason was canceled days later due to the COVID pandemic.

Before Tuesday’s game at Indiana, Gard recalled walking into the same locker room that the Badgers celebrated in following that triumph five years ago. As it often does, his mind went to Moore.

“Same locker room, same spot, everything,” Gard said. “It’s hard to imagine it’s been five years.”

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